International

Due to the pandemic, international travel has been restricted worldwide. Thus, to help students widen their world view and form cross-border friendship, this virtual collaboration is set up to enable NIE students to interact with students from overseas universities.

Objectives

The G-NIE University Virtual Collaboration aims to achieve the following objectives:

• Enable both Griffith and NIE Students to forge new friendships virtually
• Increase the global awareness and knowledge of students involved in the collaboration
• Forge a strong partnership between Griffith University and the National Institute of Education (Singapore) through student led collaborations.

The main learning objectives of the Teaching English as a Foreign Language module was to provide a solid foundation for Griffith University students to develop their English language teaching to non-native speakers of English. This included introducing important concepts such as classroom management, how to plan a lesson, effective strategies for teaching speaking and listening in the classroom and other various methodologies which could be implemented in the classroom.

The teaching practicum focused on providing an opportunity for Griffith University students to practice what they had studied during the input session and teach at local high schools in Chiang Mai. In this program, Griffith University students taught at Hopra School and Wichai Wittaya School. An integral part of the program is the integration of the “buddy system”, which pairs international students with Chiang Mai University students for the duration of their stay in Thailand. The rationale is to help the transition and reduce the possibility of culture shock for international students as well as ensuring that international students have the chance to make new friends and connections whilst studying at Chiang Mai University. In addition, students can exchange language, ideas and culture to help one another understand differences in culture.

The system has proven very successful; when international students are not studying in class, they have a chance to spend time with their Chiang Mai University counterparts during their free time. Upon completion of the program, friendships are formed and students have often continued to stay in touch via various social media platforms such as Facebook, Line, Whatsapp and Skype.

View images from this visit in 2017, which tells the story of the rich experiences Dr Hartwig and the Griffith University students had during this exchange program.

Chiang Mai University aims to be a 'Green and Healthy University', a society of Lanna Cultural conservation and developing sustainable economy. Ready to define approach of 'CMU Transformation' towards 'CMU New Step', encouraging education reform, promoting life-long learning and being the university of prototyped-innovation for community and sustainable development.

• To produce graduates who have morale, quality and skills to be global citizen.
• Conducting research and innovations for excellence.
• Serving academic services for society benefit.

COIL (Collaborated Online International Learning) Course

A five-week online collaboration between education students from Griffith University ( GU ) and Hamburg University ( UHH ) took place in Trimester 3 2021. The dialogue offered students an online international experience while exploring different education systems. The course gave education students an opportunity to engage with international peers to shape and re-shape their understanding of teaching beliefs, philosophies, professional identity, and pedagogical reasoning within different education systems/sectors. During their engagement with fellow preservice teachers from Germany and Australia, students had an opportunity to discuss how they are projecting themselves within different teaching environments and what it means for their teaching strategies.

The course was presented by Dr Anna Du Plessis ( GU Project Leader), Professor Telse Annegret Iwers ( UHH Project Leader), Dr Monika Krajcovicova ( GU Project Coordinator) and Dr Christa van Aswegen ( GU Research Convenor). The course will be offered again during Trimester 2, 2022 as a COIL project, with possible face-to-face sessions with a visiting scholar from Germany.

Feedback of student experience was very positive and all students from Griffith University and Hamburg University who successfully completed the course received a non-credit Griffith Digital Badge.

Screenshot of an international online collaboration between students from GU and UHH

Griffith University is proud of–and acknowledges the commitment of our students–engaged in the Master of Learning Professional Development ( MLPD ) Singapore 2022 program.

Eight out of twelve students in Cohort 1 and eight out of eighteen students in Cohort 2 received awards for excellence in the MLPD program.

Professor Sarojini Choy shared notes of appreciation prepared by the MLPD cohort in collaboration with the PVCE Team.

The collective teamwork underpins the success of our offshore international program in Singapore.

Global employability in the 21st Century is a skill set which employers often outline as a ‘sought after’ skill when they recruit employees. It is connected with transcultural professionalism especially in the fields of education, psychology and sociology. This project will offer preservice teacher training students an opportunity to engage with international peers to shape and re-shape their understanding of teaching beliefs, philosophies, professional identity, and pedagogical reasoning within different education systems/sectors. During their engagement with fellow preservice teachers from Germany and Australia students will have an opportunity to discuss how they are projecting themselves within different teaching environments and what it means for their teaching strategies. The project will offer preservice teachers an opportunity to engage in reflective narratives and oral presentations about meta-data that align with global employability as covered during this project. Internationalization in teacher education: Digital German-Australian student dialogue offers students an online international experience while exploring different education systems. Through this endeavor, students stand to widen their social perspective and develop their ability of transcultural reflections by making international connections and expanding their online mobility; and by increasing knowledge of an education systems in an ideological structure different from their own.

The introduction module will prepare students for five international sessions (dialogue between Australian and German teacher training students), focusing on theoretical approaches to prepare students for critical reflection of the two school/education systems. These reflections will involve:

• Macro level: main anthropological orientation of learning and teaching in society, function of school in society; institutional development, development of curricula to reflect on curriculum development and bottom-up-top-down-processes
• Meso level: intercultural and transcultural approaches to reflect on current conditions of school teaching – critical analysis of similarities and differences and implications for pedagogies and teaching philosophies
• Micro level: uncertainty, identity, relation of norm and habitus, subjective theories to reflect on teacher philosophy

Course Aims

This course aims to engage students in and develop international partnerships as well as to develop a critical view on differences of teacher education and its function in different societies. The course will introduce students to different education systems and develop critical reflective skills while comparing and discussing challenges and strengths of specific systems. Students will be encouraged to discuss and reflect on anthropological orientations, sociological approaches, pedagogies, teaching philosophies and context. The aim of the course is to provide students with a unique opportunity to make international connections and to increase their online mobility. They will also expand their knowledge of diverse education systems, thereby improving their own (trans-)cultural and social knowledge and their global employability.

Learning Outcomes for Griffith Digital Badge

Skill Development towards a Culturally Competent Teacher Identity. Focusing on:

1. Teacher (Trans-)Cultural Competence - Capacity to discuss the principle of alignment of pedagogy in specific contexts/education setting
2. Teacher Professionalism in Culturally Diverse Contexts - Connections between theoretical/research literature and the discussion with a context-consciousness.
3. Teacher Identity and Ideology - Knowledge and understanding of discourse within education system regarding curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment.

This conference, 16 – 18 November 2021, provided a great opportunity to researchers, teacher educators, teachers, social scientists and professionals around the world to present research-based knowledge, experiences, new advancements, research results and innovations in the field of education.

In addition to the formal conference activities, an educational exhibition was organized for the participants at the Institute of Education and Research, University of the Punjab, Lahore-54590 Pakistan.